Knutson refers to her book in the introduction as “a study of the advancing spirit in American literature” (4) and claims that her principals, Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James, are significant in this respect. It is clear that Knutson is taking literature in its broadest sense as none of these figures were conventionally literary: Edwards was a theologian, minister and philosopher; Emerson was an essayist, poet and philosopher; and William James was a psychologist and philosopher. Indeed, philosophy rather than literature is the connection between them. In some ways this matches the theme of the book – the “advancing spirit” – as Knutson's interests are only literary in limited ways. They are more fundamentally to do with epistemology. This connects to the subtitle of the book, and the idea of the “conductive imaginary.” What Knutson means by this is a dynamic tension, which she sees in each of her authors' works, between the known and the unknown that leads to advancements in religious doctrine (Edwards), literary style (Emerson) and philosophical premise (James). She is interested, then, in moments of change and transformation. Indeed, her focus needs to be tight, as bringing together authors with such sprawling interests and whole industries of critical works risks exponential growth. Knutson, though, does keep her argument tight and does make a useful case for how these three giants of the American intellectual scene can be connected without recourse to direct influence: they all think in terms of conversion.

The book begins with an examination of the conversion narratives recorded by Thomas Shepherd, the seventeenth-century New England minister, whose congregants – with marvellous names like Barbary Cutter, Golden Moore and Nathanial Sparrowhawk – almost universally failed to find satisfaction or the converting grace in New England. They believed, Knutson argues, in America as the New Jerusalem, but they failed to believe in themselves as adequate to its promise or to the strict steps toward conversion demanded by the early Puritans. The logical steps which demanded that they provide a reasonable account of their grace defeated its emergence. Knutson opposes to this Edwards's philosophy of feeling, which, in denying the need for a reasoned account in favour of “sense of the heart,” allowed for a direct response to grace through an involvement with the everyday things of American life – its nature, for example. The New World, then, is not something to live up to, it is something to see, to experience, anew. Knutson spends much energy considering what she calls Edwards's “room of the idea.” It is never adequately explained in the book, and it does seem an elusive concept, but it is a point where the “conductive imaginary” is brought to bear. “The room of the idea” is the space where old ways meet new ways of seeing and in a kind of epiphanic moment the signs of grace become clear to the heart, though discursively inexpressible. These signs figure a kind of unity with the thing seen and a decisive change in consciousness, and the saint “closes with Christ.” The movement from here to Emerson is almost inevitable. Emerson, like the Edwards here presented, is a thinker of the epiphanic transformation – of the conductive imaginary. He also wants to find a language by which to establish a community of believers, and, Knutson argues, Emerson's literary style, with its sinuous metaphors, evasions, paradoxes and incompleteness, is his way of converting his listeners/readers to the new by leaving open spaces for them to move into, transforming their experiences of the everyday. Her argument would have been more compelling if she had offered the close reading of Emerson necessary to support such a conclusion; nevertheless I do believe she is right. James, Knutson concludes, is also fascinated by moments of conversion, which is defined as the gap between a fact and its interpretation. A conversion, then, on these terms, is a change in the self, a change of habits, which bring about a change in the world view and behaviour of an individual. Again this is a transformation of experience. This final chapter is quite short and the book lacks the kind of conclusion which could bring these figures together more tightly and point to where their influence is still at work in American literature. It is also an awkwardly written book where ideas are not always adequately or clearly explained. This said, Knutson's argument is streamlined (perhaps compressed) and she is able to bring out an important genealogy of transformation and conversion which will help intellectual historians to map the relationship between three of America's most important thinkers.